January 2019: Fact in Fiction
~ Rebecca Heflin ~
CTR asked:
How much of your real life bleeds over into your books? And do you worry that someone will be able to tell the fact from the fiction?
Rebecca Heflin said:
Not as much as most people think, although, I suppose there’s a bit of me in every book. There have been incidences that have either served as inspiration for a scene, or even an entire book. An incident involving an unplanned landing in Costa Rica served as the inspiration for my book, Rescuing Lacey. The opening scene in Ship of Dreams did happen to me (although it wasn’t a tall dark stranger who rescued me–it was a friend). Same with the opening scene in Romancing Dr. Love (dead car battery).
Even if my real life isn’t featured in the books, things I love often are. I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, specifically, Pride and Prejudice. Austen plays a big role in my first book, The Promise of Change, and the character of Fitzwilliam Darcy was the inspiration for Devon Mayfield in Educating Dr. Mayfield. I’m also a huge college football fan, so when it came time to develop the main characters in Winning Dr. Wentworth, I went with a college football coach and a statistics professor-turned-sports-analyst.
Finally, in my latest release, A Season to Dance, I drew on my 20 years of ballet experience. I don’t know what took me so long to write a heroine who danced! But. I never danced at the level of my heroine, nor suffered an injury like hers.
As for my characters’ professions, I’ve never been a photojournalist or a wildlife photographer, I’ve never taught college classes, I’ve never worked in advertising, nor been an author’s assistant.
Regardless of how much is fact or fiction, everyone seems to think everything I write is about me in some way. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I find it is so much more fun to write about characters who are the exact opposite of me in every way–the snarky, blunt, confident women that appear in many of my books.
– Website – http://www.rebeccaheflin.com
– Twitter – @RebeccaHeflin
A Season to Dance (Book #1, Seasons of Northridge)
[Contemporary Romance]
Olivia James and Zach Ryder were high school sweethearts, but at age eighteen, she left small-town Georgia for the bright lights and satin pointe shoes of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet. Seventeen years later, Olivia’s come home for her mother’s funeral, nursing an injury that could likely end her meteoric dance career. Being back home stirs up old heartache, and seeing Zach again is noton her to-do list. Her best bet is get in, get out—a week at most. Then she’ll return to Chicago to rehabilitate her injury and salvage her career. But best laid plans often go astray…
Zach has never really recovered from Olivia’s departure, even though he always knew she was destined for fame, while he was destined for small-town life. Now Olivia’s back and he’s determined to protect his heart. But when he learns she’s staying in town longer than originally planned, Zach knows they are going to have to face the past to move on. He’s just not prepared for the beautiful woman she’s become or the effect she still has on his heart.
Small towns being what they are, Zach and Olivia are constantly thrown into one another’s paths, and it soon becomes apparent they still love each other. Will they give in to their rekindled desire and seize a second chance at happiness?
Available in Ebook:
More Authors Dish about their facts in fiction.
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